


By any means (necessary)

by Taeyn



Series: to live forever [5]
Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Ancient Omens, Camilla cares for Henry when he returns from Italy, F/M, Illness, Migraine, Storms, True Love, narrated by Henry, post-bacchanal, troubled times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-18 18:26:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9397547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taeyn/pseuds/Taeyn
Summary: “Ξέρει. ξέρει όλα,” I choked, unable to form the thought in English.He knows. He knows all.“Not now,” she whispered, Julian’s footsteps approaching on her words. Her tone was low, soothing and coarse, and yet it was not a tender thing. Nothing about her ever was. “Not yet.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is inspired by the below TSH passage, though in canon, Camilla (and Charles) were in Virginia with their grandmother at this point in the holidays, not in Vermont. Also, the story contains (mild!) references to pain/nausea symptoms related to having a migraine, in case anyone is squicked by that sort of thing. I kind of used to be. ^^;; Other than that, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy! <3
> 
> -
> 
> “It was a good thing, I suppose, that he came back early,” said Julian, glancing through my cards, “but I was surprised to see him, too. He showed up at my house straight from the airport, in the middle of a snowstorm, in the middle of the night.”
> 
> This was interesting. “Did he stay with you?” I said.
> 
> “Yes, but only a few days. He’d been ill himself, you know.”

I was dimly aware of something in my periphery, and the longer I looked at it, the less discernible it became. My senses were vague, interchangeable ideas, I could hear the cold like slender chimes of a harp, smell pain like burning wood. I could move, which was a bad sign. There’s a point, I believe, somewhere between the nausea and bright flickering colours, when I seem to feel nothing at all. My skin goes dull and numb, and touch becomes a vaporous, transient thing, ghosts of objects my hands still recognise. There was a rope, thick and golden, clutched in my fist. It wove through the passages of my memory until it connected to a drape, a pane of glass, and then finally Julian’s guestroom, furnished in deep russet and rich fabrics.

I was at Julian’s house. I was trying to open the curtains, or close them, or nothing at all. I was transfixed at the window. The flight back to Italy had, in my mind, already morphed into some long ago horror, opaque as my childhood and no less gruesome for time.

“Henry,” came a voice, and I could taste smoke and honey, hyacinths sprung from the ash. My lips were cracked and my throat a noose.

“I’ve got you,” she said again, and I realised the warmth at my chest was her skin. I wasn’t so light as I was before. The floating sensation that had roused me was departing with urgency, and I felt the weight of my limbs sink against her smaller frame.

“Just a few more steps, we’re so close now…”

Were we moving? A blurry paleness that I perceived as the bed was growing closer. _Crisp white sheets, lamiaceae steeped in hot water._

“There, here, here…”

_Camilla._

The realisation near punched the breath from me, and my fingers tightened instinctively at her arms. She was helping me lay back on the mattress, her grip strong and steady, and she exhaled a familiar murmur when she felt me seize up. She knew I’d returned.

“Ξέρει. ξέρει όλα,” I choked, unable to form the thought in English. _He knows. He knows all._

“Not now,” she whispered, Julian’s footsteps approaching on her words. Her tone was low, soothing and coarse, and yet it was not a tender thing. Nothing about her ever was. “Not yet.”

-

When I woke again, matters were somewhat less pleasant. The pain had settled back into my skull, sweat drenched my face and my clothes. I was shaking too, uncontrollably, I couldn’t lift the jug of water at my side. When I set it down, the clatter of ceramic on wood seemed unnaturally loud, and stirred Camilla from her book.

“Julian wants to drive you to the doctor,” she whispered, gently held the glass to my lips. “He’s very concerned. So am I.”

I swallowed, gave the barest flinch of a nod. Would it ease them know this was a fraction of what I withstood in Rome? Perhaps not. But I thought it best to wait, both with the explanation and the doctor, and communicated this to Camilla as lucidly as I was able. I was through the worst of it, and a shot of phenobarbital would render me sedate for days. I had no idea at that point how soon Bunny planned to return.

“But, do you think you are? Through the worst of it, I mean?” Camilla’s eyes were full and wet, and I deeply wished to reassure her. The truth was, my trip had uncovered nothing but my own dire miscalculations, and I was no longer sure of anything at all.

-

The storm thickened, braying animals and monsters on the wind. I made it to the ensuite in time to be sick, my eyes tearing from the vileness of it. A frozen branch was lashing against the windows, and the image of two hands, wild and groping, suddenly tore into my vision. I coughed into the basin, washed my face and mouth again. Strangely, it was this memory that calmed me.

Camilla knocked on the door, I watched her open it in the mirror. Our reflections exchanged smiles, mine blanched and trembling.

“I’m sorry,” I said unsteadily. “I feel slightly better now.”

“Would you like to sit on the porch?” Camilla asked, reached a hand to smooth back my hair. “Get some fresh air? I’ll make us a drink.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I had expected we might see Julian in the sitting room, but the darkness of the space told me he had retired for the evening.

“He said to wake him for any reason at all,” Camilla murmured, guessing my train of thought. “He was up that whole first night, you were in a bad way. I was so glad that he called.”

I blinked, Camilla fetched scotch and soda and two tall glasses. Until that moment, it never occurred to me that this _wasn’t_ my first night back in Vermont, nor that there was anything unusual about Camilla being at Julian’s.

“What did I say to him?” I asked, trying hard to recall such details myself. I’d waited in line at the cab stand, my suitcase heavy and the snow a damp, glittery dust. The adrenaline that had carried me through my journey was waning.

“Only that you weren’t well. And you told him a little about where you stayed, I think. The _Piazza di Spagna_? You kept saying the rooms were lovely.”

“They were,” I said quietly, unprepared for the bolt of discomfort that followed. I pinched the bridge of my nose, waited for the throbbing at my temples to subside. When I could breathe again, Camilla placed a hand at my wrist. We stood like a that a long time.

-

I leant against the wooden railing, rain soaking through our shoes, splashing into our drinks. It was guttingly cold, the violence of it reaching me in ways the headache never would. It was a magnificent, triumphant feeling, those brief minutes while we could stand it. At one point Camilla squeezed shut her eyes and spread her arms, her head tipped and her mouth smiling open.

“ _Oblativa ex caelo,_ ” I heard myself shouting, swept up in the fury of it all. An unsought omen, offered from the sky.

“Shall we disband with our counsel?” called Camilla, her voice braced against the wind. “Or summon one anew?”

I gazed solemnly back at her, though she couldn’t see.

“Camilla,” I said softly, “I fear I’ve gravely underestimated him.”

She opened her eyes, stared at me sad and knowing.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. For all our cursed fate and worse luck, it ended with some perfect, simple detail that had defeated me. Our safe passage had been mine alone to recognise, and in my blindness, I had sublimely failed them all.

“No one can predict the future,” she answered, bit her lip until a tiny spot of blood appeared.

“No,” I sighed, stared into the storm. “Not anymore.”

-

Dawn was grim that morning, milky reds and purples, fog strangling the pines. I sat with Camilla in the sitting room, her blanket around my shoulders and her back against my chest. My headache had dissipated into weary white noise, a typical soreness in my joints and a restless sense of hunger.

“Shall we go away?” Camilla murmured, warmed her hands inside my sleeves. “We could pack up, leave before he even got back.”

I had thought of this myself, though, until she spoke, it had seemed a rash and impractical notion. In Camilla’s voice, it seemed like the only reasonable one at all.

“If we do, we’ll have no handle on anything he plans. It would make no difference if he forgot the whole thing. We could never return.”

“Sometimes I don’t think that would be so bad.” She laughed, a small, aching sound. I closed my fingers around her hand.

“It wouldn’t be unfeasible,” I said after a time. “For one, my father’s connections in South America are for the most part unpublished. He could provide us with an element of assistance in that regard, should it ever be required.”

“I could put in the renewal papers for my passport this afternoon,” she said. I wondered for how long she’d kept them filled-in, ready.

“Alright,” I said, and I meant it. “I’ll give Francis another hour or so of sleep, then call his number in New York.”

Camilla reached for her cigarettes, fumbled with the matchbook.

“Yes,” she said, her mouth turned down at the edges. She stopped. “You know, it’s the silliest thing.”

I pressed a kiss to the top of her brow. I didn’t like to see her upset, liked less that I couldn’t fix that too.

“I’ve imagined us running away since he found that newspaper clipping, the one he left on your windshield. Not just daydreams, either. I’ve been picturing what my life would be like without college, what _I_ might be like in ten, fifteen years.”

There was something desolate in her thoughts that I found both stirring and familiar. _Remote prospects, wild country._

“And, in all of those pictures, it was just me and you.”

She glanced up, shook her head with a smile. I hadn’t moved.

“But that would be terribly unfair, wouldn’t it? I don’t think Francis would cope, and Charles…”

She trailed off, chewed on the edge of the striking board.

“I won’t call them,” I said simply.

“Henry...”

“I won’t.”

“I do love them,” she whispered.

“So do I,” I said truthfully.

She took a deep breath, less shaky on the exhale.

“We could get them out of the country, at least. If they wanted to go. They’d be safer anywhere than here.”

“They’d be free,” I returned, and saying it made me realise. This was not a matter of living without fear, but living without control. Nothing leading up to our departure would prepare me for after it. And, in an existence navigated by wit and instinct, the possibilities that followed…

Infinite.

“We have a lot to do,” Camilla said quietly. Hopeful.

“We will,” I said, struck the match. “We can do it all.”

-


End file.
